“CEQ is releasing draft guidance for public comment on when and how Federal agencies must consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in their proposed actions,” the White House said in a press release announcing the Draft.

“The draft guidance explains how Federal agencies should analyze the environmental impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change when they describe the environmental impacts of a proposed action under NEPA.”

“The Chamber opposes incorporation of climate change into the NEPA analysis,” wrote the Chamber in comment to the White House. “[A]pplying NEPA to greenhouse gases in the manner discussed in CEQ’s draft guidance could open the floodgates to lawsuits by environmental groups and other Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) activists to delay or stop projects.”

And the National Mining Association (NMA) argued for the opposite of what the CEQ proposal called for: fast-track reviews and time limits on them.

“A lengthy and unpredictable permitting process discourages the capital investments required for mineral exploration and mine development – destroying US job opportunities and contributing to our increased reliance on foreign supplies of minerals to supply US manufacturing and technology companies,” the NMA opined in its letter.

The industry push-back paid off.

After waiting for over four years for the final CEQ rules to be published, the International Center for Technology Assessment and the Center for Food Safety filed a legal complaint in May 2014 about the length of time it had taken CEQ to respond to their initial 2008 petition and issue final rules.

That complaint, it appears, served as the beginning of the end of the lengthy legal stand-off — for now.

“We appreciate and share your concern about the impacts of climate change on the environment,” wrote CEQ in the letter.

“CEQ and this Administration have taken seriously the urgency of addressing cliamte (sic) change and we are actively moving forward on a comprehensive Climate Action Plan focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions…In light of these actions…CEQ does not believe that revising its existing NEPA regulations is necessary.”

Export Abroad, Regulate at Home

“Much of the policy is being carried out behind closed doors,” explained Bloomberg BNA reporter Paul Shukovsky in a December 2013 investigative piece. “The CEQ exercises oversight, in secret, over the ways that permitting agencies…implement the National Environmental Policy Act.”

Shukovsky explained that as CEQ carries out a policy of promoting coal exports, it has completely negated weighing the climate change impacts.

CEQ and the agencies it coordinates with decided not to “consider the climate-change impact of burning hundreds of millions of tons of U.S. coal in Asia in its environmental analysis of export terminals being proposed in the Pacific Northwest,” he wrote.

Jackson cited climate change in his judgment, saying several federal agencies that originally permitted the mine expansion proposal did not consider climate impacts when they did their NEPA analysis and accompanying environmental impact statement (EIS).

He argued NEPA legally binds them to do so.

“The specific issue is whether the agencies took a 'hard look' at the rule’s contribution to climate change,” wrote Jackson. “I find that the [agencies] failed to take a hard look at these effects.”

Jackson also argued there is a tool to measure future climate change impacts: the “social cost of carbon.” Greenpeace USA used this tool to measure the climate impacts of BLM's coal leasing program.

“The carbon pollution from publicly owned coal leased during the Obama administration will cause damages estimated at between $52 billion and $530 billion, using the federal government’s social cost of carbon estimates,” wrote Greenpeace.

But at least one agency — the one coordinating with every other agency on energy and climate policy issues— has decided to “bury their heads in the sand” on climate change: the Council on Environmental Quality.

“Strong guidance from CEQ might have improved clarity and consistency in agencies’ analysis, and helped shine a bright spotlight on the federal government’s significant contribution to climate pollution,” Zukoski told DeSmogBlog via email. “CEQ’s washing its hands of the issue is a big missed opportunity.”

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE